Food decorators often create impressions of designs in media including buttercream, fondant, gum paste, modeling dough, and cookie dough. These designs may include alphanumeric characters, symbols, or ornamental embellishments to decorate food products. The decorator may use presses comprising press pieces to create designs on the surfaces of food products. It can be difficult to achieve the desired impressions in a precise and repeatable manner.
A problem with the current presses is that they do not allow decorators to create impressions without press pieces moving during use. In addition, the current presses and press pieces do not allow decorators to see through the presses while creating impressions. That is, the opacity of current presses and press pieces obscure the sightline of the decorator at critical times during decoration. The opacity of current presses and press pieces also requires decorators to estimate the approximate location and orientation of the impression. Correct placement of the impressions on media is challenging to achieve and cannot be ensured.
Current presses do not allow for the impression pieces to remain fixed in desired configurations without movement. Decorators must currently use great delicacy and care in lifting and turning such presses over to avoid moving the impression pieces. Decorators often use their fingers to help keep the impression pieces in place, which is further complicated by the difficulty in aligning the press for placement as noted above. Many current presses do not facilitate combining alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric designs together. Decorators currently approximate the location of impressions when combining alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric designs, resulting in imperfect borders and lines. Such imperfections often extend decoration time because they may require the decorator to remove the imperfect impression and start over.
A need exists for improved technology, including technology that may address the above described disadvantages.